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Their View: Let's apply common sense on worker's comp

Posted:
02/14/2013 01:00:00 AM MST

There are times when we get the sense that the folks making our laws up in Santa Fe are over-thinking things a little bit.

Or over-lawyering them.

Such was the case earlier this session when Democrats on the House Labor and Human Resources Committee decided that it would be unfair to discriminate against drunken workers who get injured on the job.

Rep. Dennis Roch, R-Texico, introduced legislation at the request of the New Mexico Court of Appeals that is designed to reconcile conflicting aspects in the state worker's compensation law and make it more difficult for workers to collect if they were intoxicated when the injury happened.

One part of the law says a worker can not receive compensation if they are injured at work as a result of their intoxication. Another part of the law says that compensation can only be cut by up to 10 percent if intoxication is a contributing factor in the injury.

And so, when Edward Villa showed up drunk for work at his job as a Las Cruces city sanitation worker in April 2006, and later fell off the back of a garbage truck and injured himself, a worker's compensation judge was forced to determine whether being drunk — Villa's alcohol level was measured at .12 more than three hours after the accident — had caused the accident or merely contributed to it.

Both the original judge and, later, the Court of Appeals found that because Villa was working on a small ledge trying to free a bin that was stuck in the truck's hopper, the fall could have happened drunk or sober.

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And so, Villa was awarded more than $100,000 in benefits.

We share the frustration the Court of Appeals must have felt in making that award and later requesting that the law be changed. Roch's bill would give worker's compensation judges the flexibility to use common sense in determining awards for workers who were drunk or high at work at the time they got injured.

Rep. Miguel Garcia of Albuquerque, chairman of the committee that killed the bill, argued that holding employees responsible for coming to work sober each day would be "punitive to the worker." In reality, turning a blind eye to intoxicated workers will only lead to more workplace accidents.

And, as Roch points out, workers who are drunk on the job site are not only putting their own welfare at risk, but are also endangering their co-workers, especially when heavy equipment is involved.

Villa was too drunk to legally drive the garbage truck he fell off. It simply defies sense that he is later rewarded with a payout of more than $100,000.

A second bill on this issue is being heard in the Senate. It's our hope that common sense will prevail this time.

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